Lost
by Missie2
Summary: As an Amethyst retired to working in a lost property office, her life now revolves around pearls.


**Lost**

This is just a quick drabble, I'm still waiting to get back my laptop so we can rejoin Rose and Pearl for more dystopian shenanigans.

...

 _"Yes then she'd lost something more tangible, if undefinable: her heart? her independence? her control of, definition of, self? That first true loss, the furious bafflement of it. And never again quite so assured, confident."_

 _-Faithless, Joyce Carol Oates_

It was a small chip, barely noticeable to the bare eye, but for Amethyst it might as well have been a complete split. It wrenched her away from the life she knew well, as all Amethysts knew well, a life of brawling and brute force and the body as both shield and battering ram.

And it had happened so easily, so fleetingly, it could have happened to another Amethyst. There were seventy of them, maybe more as other precincts flooded in to deal with the mob, and they had all come away unscathed. She just happned to be in front of the one Ruby whose aim didn't miss.

The others shied away from her, offering nothing more than a strong silent grasp of her broad shoulder. Grief was not a feeling they dealt with well and she couldn't begrudge them that. She would miss them, of course, but she would be quickly replaced and they would not miss her.

...

"...and this is where we keep the pearls when we get them."

Flourite gestured with an almost dusty-sounding cough towards a narrow shelf sitting directly behind the counterspace. Amethyst frowned as she ducked to avoid hitting the ceiling. There was a pearl sitting on the shelf, a little ragged-looking waif almost completely white from head to toe.

"We keep the pearls for thirty cycles," Flourite continued, dragging up a screen filled with boxes and lines. "If they've not been claimed you call the processing centre to pick them up. Everything else gets twenty cycles, except for the ID chips. They have to be processed within two cycles. Any questions?"

Amethyst shook her head sullenly. The room was far too small to contain her. She felt boxed in.

"Good," Flourite said with a grateful sigh. "It's an easy enough job, makes a nice change from the mess out there to be honest. I'd take it over active battle any day."

It was said that Fluorites had a cowardly streak, that was why they were so often relegated to strategy and codework. Amethyst would rather have thrown herself into battle than be lowered to the lost property office.

Fluorite seemed to know what she was thinking, because suddenly she straightened and when she spoke again, her tone was grave.

"I know it's going to be hard to adjust to," she said, lifting her eyes skyward to meet Amethyst's. "But you need to give it a chance. They're not going to let you work the street again, and you've got a long way to go before you can retire. You'll have to make the best of it."

And with that, she was gone. Her own retirement had started, and she wasn't permitted to stay in the office a moment longer.

...

It was, in a word, _dull._

She hadn't realized how careless gems were with their property before. Tracer guns, ID chips, credit clips, all manner of apparel, and of course no less than one pearl at any given time. About three-quarters of the stuff would be processed.

If anyone came in to collect anything, it was usually the pearls. If anything had the potential to be interesting, it was when the gem arrived to collect the pearl they'd lost.

"That's her," the Larimar told her breathlessly, relieved. "Thank goodness. I've been to every..."

"I need to see your documents," Amethyst cut her off before the Larimar could sweet-talk her.

"I don't have them," she responded. Of course she didn't. Amethyst had guessed that the moment she saw her.

"Then I can't release it to you. You can't prove it's yours."

"Of course she's mine," the Larimar huffed. "All you have to do is ask her. You're mine, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," the pearl replied placidly from the shelf.

"That's not proof," Amethyst told her. "I need documents or she has to be processed."

"Well, I don't have them," Larimar snarled. "When my partner hears about..."

"If there's no documents, I can't release it. It's the law."

Muttering darkly, the Larimar stomped out without a backwards glance. The pearl watched her leave. Its expression never changed.

Two cycles later, it was taken away and processed. The Larimar never returned.

...

"Here you go," Amethyst said, lifting the pearl easily over the counter. "I need you to sign her out."

"Sure," the Aquamarine said absently, running her fingers over the pearl's gem. "She feels scratched. Has she really been on that shelf the whole time?"

"Yes. That's where we keep them."

"How did you get scratched?" the Aquamarine asked the pearl, ignoring Amethyst completely.

"The burglars put me in a box of sulphate shards," the pearl replied. "I broke the box when I regenerated."

"Oh, you poor thing," the Aquamarine cooed.

Amethyst looked up from the holo-form she was typing on. The Aquamarine was cuddling the pearl as if it was a new gem just out of the ground, stroking its hair and back. The pearl bore it with the same neutrality it had sported since it arrived at the office.

"We'll go to the polisher's on the way home, get you fixed up," she said, turning to the holo-form and deftly signing it. "And then we can put this whole nasty business behind us."

Gesturing as she did to the whole office as 'this nasty business' meant Amethyst, taking up a third of the office with her mass, was included. She clamped down hard on the urge to say something rude, and a moment later Aquamarine was gone, with her pearl in tow.

...

At times when the office was quiet, and it was often quiet, she regarded the pearls out of the corner of her eye, or under her hair, or pretending to look out the one small window beside the shelf.

They came in a variety of colours and styles, all muted pale shades as if bright colour was something they couldn't process. They could have hair down to their knees or cropped to just two delinches, styled elaborately or left loose. They could be dressed in shimmering diaphonous ruffles or just a plain jumpsuit. The one constant between them all was the look of utter emptiness on their faces.

No matter what happened, if their owner came to pick them up or left without them, they never showed a flicker of sadness, joy or anger in their expressions. Amethyst thought it was odd, but then thought it was odd that she thought it was odd. Pearls were built this way, after all. It would be like asking the holo-screen how it felt.

But still...

...

"...I have most of them...I couldn't find the other two."

The Chalcedony was distressed, unusually so. Amethyst had come to think of them as composed gems, as eerily calm as the pearls themselves. But this Chalcedony's panic was written all over her face as she presented the documents, her eyes were already watering as she knew what was coming. This was her fourth trip to the office.

"I'm sorry," Amethyst began, and this time she truly was sorry. "I need all the documents. I can't verify that it belongs to you."

"She," Chalcedony corrected with a sob. "She belongs with me."

"I'm sorry," Amethyst repeated as she collapsed into bitter tears.

"I...can't...leave...without...her..." Chalcedony bit out between shuddering breaths.

"Please don't be sad," the pearl said suddenly from the shelf, so suddenly that Amethyst started and almost went to her gem for her weapon. She'd never heard one speak without prompting before.

"You have insurance," the pearl continued. "You can use the credit to purchase a new pearl. The processing centre will give you my old functions on a chip if you ask them."

"I don't want a new pearl!" Chalcedony yelled. "I want you! You're _my_ pearl!"

Amethyst hadn't noticed until then, but for some reason saw it. Chalcedony's pearl was sitting beside another and they were holding hands. It unnerved her.

"Okay, look," Amethyst lowered her voice and beckoned Chalcedony closer. "If you don't have the documents I can't sign her out, that's a given. But the processing staff will be here to pick her up in two cycles, at second quadrant. That's the time they gave me. They may give her to you if you bribe them."

Chalcedony stopped and stared, because this was highly illegal, but it was hope. Impossible hope.

"How much would I need?" she asked.

"I don't know, a lot," Amethyst answered, making a note to request a Sodalite she was on good terms with. One that was notably careless and would appreciate some extra money. "How much is the pearl worth to you? I'd say at least enough to buy a new edition pearl."

"Okay," Chalcedony said with a shuddering sigh. "I'll do it. Thank you."

"Whatever," Amethyst muttered.

She left with a promise to the pearl that she would return for her. The pearl took it with customary blankness.

Within two cycles, the Sodalite arrived to pick up both pearls for the processing centre. Amethyst didn't see what happened and didn't ask afterwards.

...

She could tell at a glance what pearls would be collected and what ones would be processed.

The rule was, the fancier the pearl the faster the owner would be there to collect it. Any pearl with an elaborate costume or hairstyle, usually a personal assistant for the actual owner would be down with full paperwork to collect it. These pearls were often mislaid at parties or left in the back of lugers, their function was purely decorative.

The stolen ones came in with most or all of their serial numbers removed and were mostly purged straight away, but the more notable ones that hadn't been wiped went to the office. The owners would appear after a few cycles, having checked the other offices or gotten a call that the pearl had been traced back to them. They were absently grateful, filled out the forms without a fuss and left in a hurry. These pearls were utilitarian in appearance, plain clothed and hair bound away from their face if not cropped short. They rarely had flaws.

The pearls that the owners had personal attachments too were funny to watch. The owners were pathetically grateful, talked more to the pearl than to Amethyst, worried over little flaws that the pearl had incurred, sometimes even asked the pearl how it was _feeling._ They were dressed with sentiment, always nice dresses if not very fancy.

The pearls that wouldn't be picked up at all were plain, unkempt even. Sometimes they had cracks and chips missing from their gem and missing mass as a result. They were discoloured, ragged, well-used. These were the ones left on public tracers or forgotten in clubs, sometimes deliberately to claim insurance and get a newer, fancier pearl as replacement.

Still, the pearls were the focus of Amethyst's job, there was no doubt about that. Silica barrels and impounded weapons barely made a dent in the cycles but not a cycle went by where a pearl wasn't handed in, collected, or processed.

Even away from the office, her head was full of them. She had found herself envying them their daintiness, how well they fit into any space, and their blankness, how little they cared for their circumstances.

Mostly she evied them for how desired they were, how much they were valued, even the forgotten ones that had to be purged because even if their owners had forgotten them they were still worth enough to be outright destroyed. An Amethyst, anonymous in their power and solidity, could only dream of being so wanted.


End file.
